by K. E. Mills
Bibbie nodded, her face still twisted with revulsion. “He’s right, Monk. It’s starting to unfurl. I can feel it. So get cracking on a way to release me once it does, otherwise I’m going to be late to the office in the morning and I’ll be stonkered if I have to put up with a lecture from Melissande and Reg!”
“Right,” Monk muttered. “Right.” He shook his arm free. “Gerald-we’ll read it together. Compare notes afterwards. On three. One-two- three.”
In the weeks since he’d moved into the old house in Chatterly Crescent, he and Monk had spent quite a bit of time in thaumaturgical tandem, cautiously testing the ether and each other to see what was what. They weren’t evenly matched; his transformation into a First Grade wizard with extra oomph meant he out-powered even the renowned Monk Markham. But even so they’d managed to pull off some impressive feats of metaphysics-and that now proved to have been most seren-dipitous, because their mucking about had shown him how to comfortably adjust his own thaumaturgic intensity to match his friend’s impressive but still lighter punch.
Eyes closed as he navigated the agitated ether, he was acutely aware of Monk and Bibbie and the imminently-activating shadbolt. Its incant was foul, corrosive, blooming like a rancid rose.
Nearly… nearly… hold on, Bibbie. Hold on.
The incant ignited and Bibbie screamed.
“No, don’t touch her!” Gerald said, holding Monk back. “You might contaminate its thaumic signature.”
Monk’s breathing was harsh and ragged, like sobs. “Bloody hell, Bibbie,” he said, his voice strangled. “When this is over I’m going to bloody kill you.”
“Provided one of you doesn’t kill me sooner,” said Bibbie, through clenched teeth. There were tears in her eyes. “Just-hurry up, will you? Please? This thing is horrid.”
“Come on, Monk, concentrate,” he said. “Our window of opportunity’s slamming shut.”
Linking potentias for the second time, he and Monk plunged themselves into the etheretic maelstrom surrounding Bibbie. Tainted by the fast-maturing shadbolt, it seethed and surged, protesting against the dark magics Bibbie had unleashed in the parlor.
Bloody hell, I hope this doesn’t set off an alarm somewhere in the Department.
His belly churned frantically, the brandy he’d drunk fighting to come back up again. Grimly he fought just as hard to keep it down.
Beside him, Monk grunted. “I can see it. Can you see it, Gerald? What do you think?”
I think that shadbolt’s a bloody monstrosity.
Unshackled, Bibbie’s etheretic aura was pure and clean and colored a faint golden-rose, like fresh snow at sunrise. Looking at it now, though, all he could see was a filthy, festering tangle of corrupted magic that strangled Bibbie’s aura like diseased barbed wire. The worst of it was centered around her head, her face, the shadbolt’s purpose to keep her mouth shut, her mind imprisoned. To keep all her secrets from spilling into ears not meant to hear them.
As though a giant fist punched him, he remembered the dream-the illusion-created for him by Monk’s delerioso incant. Remembered that wizard who’d never existed-what was his name? William? — and the shadbolt he’d been asked to break as part of his final janitor’s exam, and how it had felt to smash the binding hex. Pretend-William had howled like a dying dog.
But lord, this is real. And I hate it.
Even as he railed against the horror smothering Bibbie, a part of his mind, the detached, wizardly, rogue agent part, was admiring the shadbolt’s ruthless complexity. Was memorizing its blueprint, the way its confining strands thickened and twisted and looped themselves in such knots…
Monk’s furious distress was growing, reverberating through their linked potentias. Any minute now it would be a real problem because that distress was threatening to disrupt any useful reading of the shadbolt-and without an accurate reading, without discovering the key to its disarticulation, Bibbie would remain trapped within it as securely as Mr. Plummer’s prisoner was trapped.
“Monk!” he said. “Don’t you dare fall apart on me now. Come on, get a grip. If a slip of a girl can stand this, so can you!”
With an effort that sent waves of pain rippling through the ether, Monk throttled his anguish and regained his balance. Their thaumic link held. Breathing hard, they continued to examine the cruelly constricting shadbolt.
“Gerald-Monk-not to be a nag, but would you mind getting a move on?” Bibbie whispered, her voice small and close to breaking. “Only this isn’t quite as much fun as I thought it would be.”
Choking, Monk let out a long, shaky breath. “Gerald-can you break this damned thing?”
He felt his heart sink. Yes, Monk, of course I can. But what use would that be? He couldn’t march into Mr. Plummer’s office and break the one on his prisoner, could he? Monk had to do that. And he had to do it without help. No one could know about Gerald Dunwoody’s unauthorized, unsanctioned thaumaturgical assistance.
“Gerald!”
He eased himself out of the ether, drawing Monk with him. Drained and shaky they looked at each other. Monk’s face was chalk-white and sweating, the habitual manic amusement in his eyes chased away by stark fear.
As for what Monk could see in his eyes, he didn’t want to know.
They looked at Bibbie, transfixed before them. She was chalk-white too, tears trickling down her cheeks. But as they turned to her she smiled. She was so brave. So wonderful.
“You can do this,” she said, her hands clenched to fists by her sides. The pain of the shadbolt shuddered through her. “You’re the best wizards in Ottosland. In the world. When you two work together there’s nothing you can’t achieve. All right? Do you believe me?”
Gerald nodded. “Of course. Only-” He turned back to Monk. “Look-”
“I know,” Monk said, grim. And of course he did. He was a very, very smart man. “So what are we going to do?”
“Take it step by step,” he said. “Slowly. Did you see the incant’s central helix?”
“Yes,” said Monk, his mouth pinched at the corners. “It’s the same as the other one. A triple-chained reversing skeleton. Quadruple-linked through the spinal hex into the outlying semi-cants. It’s a bastard, Gerald. A thaumaturgical minefield.”
“Yes, but we’ll defuse it. You heard what Bibbie said-we’re the best in the business.” Somehow he managed to make himself smile. “Okay. So. The key to dismantling the shadbolt lies in the outlying semi-cants.”
Monk frowned. “It does? Are you sure? I didn’t see-”
“Yes, you did. You just didn’t realize what you were looking at. Look again. Go on.”
This time Monk sank his senses into the ether alone. Staying unsubmerged, Gerald watched Bibbie’s face as her brother cautiously poked and prodded his way around the shadbolt. The lightest touch pained her. More tears brimmed in her eyes and her teeth sank into her lower lip, threatening to draw blood.
“It’s okay, Bibbie,” he said softly, not daring to touch her. “I’m here. You can do this. It’ll be over soon. You’re all right.”
Blinking rapidly, she nodded. “I know. Oh, Gerald…” Her voice broke. “It hurts.”
Bibbie.
It nearly killed him not to hold her, not to crush her to his chest. She was so brave, and he loved her, and barring a miracle-or a disaster-she could never be his.
With a gasp Monk pulled himself out of the ether. “I saw it! I saw what you mean. And you’re right. But there’s a trick to it. A nasty one. The bloody things are sequenced. Trip them out of order and-”
“And what?” said Bibbie. “Monk? And what?”
“You’ll die,” he said flatly. “It’s a failsafe.” He glanced sideways. “That isn’t in the other shadbolt.”
“Which is why you weren’t expecting it,” he said. “Monk, settle down.”
But Monk was nowhere near to settling. “One mistake, Gerald. One mistake and I’ll kill her.”
Bibbie tilted her chin, just like Melissande. “Well, then, big bro
ther. Don’t make a mistake.”
Groaning, hands pressed flat to his face, Monk turned away. “I can’t. It’s not just the sequence, Bibs, there’s some kind of timing involved on top of it. Did you feel that too, Gerald?”
“I did,” he said. Bugger it. “And that’s not something I can help you with, Monk. I mean, I can-I will, if you want-tell you in which order to trip the semi-cants. But you’re the only one who can judge the timing.”
Monk let his hands drop. “I can’t,” he said, with a terrible intensity. “You do it. You do it all. You won’t make a mistake, but I might.”
“No, you won’t,” Bibbie protested. “Monk, you won’t.”
He turned on her, savagely. “You don’t bloody know that!”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I do, because I’m your little sister and you love me and you know bloody well I’ll come back and haunt you if you get it wrong. And if you don’t do it, Monk, then you won’t be able to remove the shadbolt from the man Plummer has in custody which means I did this for nothing. And then I’ll hate you, Monk. D’you hear me? I’ll hate you. Forever!”
“Which’ll make us even, won’t it?” Monk retorted. “Because I already hate you for doing this, you stupid, stupid girl!”
“Fine, then, hate me!” she shouted. “See if I care! So long as you get this horrible thing off me you can hate me all you like!”
“Hey, hey,” said Gerald, catching Monk by the shoulder. “Bibbie’s right. You have to be the one who does this. For once you need to take all the credit. The slightest whiff that I’m involved and we’d both be finished and-” He swallowed, hard. “It might be selfish to say it, but I need to stay a janitor. The only reason I’m breathing free air is because of Sir Alec. Right now, if I didn’t have him to hide behind-well-I’d be in a spot of trouble.”
Monk shook his head, his face taut with distress. “In other words you’re asking me to choose between my best friend and my sister.”
It sounded awful when he put it like that. “I’m asking you to trust yourself. You always have before.”
“Yeah, well, before you were a clumsy Third Grade wizard, weren’t you? And now-”
He took Monk by the shoulders. “And now I’m telling you that you can do this. I might have changed but you haven’t. You’re the great Monk Markham, the terror of R amp;D.”
“God,” said Monk, shivering. “I think I’d rather be a tailor.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Trust me.” He spun Monk around and gave him a little push. “Now go on. It’s not polite to keep a lady waiting.”
“Ha,” said Monk. “That’s no lady. That’s my sister.”
But he walked back to Bibbie, and stood before her, and smiled. “Are you ready, Emmerabiblia?”
Her chin tilted again. “Don’t call me that. I hate it.”
Monk’s hesitant smile quirked briefly into a grin. “I know.” And then he flicked a glance over his shoulder. “So what’s the order of the semi-cants, Professor Dunwoody?”
Gerald closed his eyes and summoned to mind the shape of the shadbolt. “Tero, duo, quadro, une. Canti, sexto, octo, sept.”
Monk muttered the sequence under his breath, then nodded. “All right then. Hold down your petticoats, Bibs. This could get a little bumpy.”
A deep breath, a whispered prayer-and Monk dived back into the ether. More than anything Gerald wanted to dive back in there with him, but he didn’t dare risk it. Monk couldn’t afford even the slightest distraction. And anyway, Bibbie shouldn’t have to go through this alone.
“I’m holding your hand, Bibs. Can you feel it?”
She nodded, her eyes so bright and brilliant. “Yes. Yes. It’s all right, Gerald. Don’t worry. I’m not afraid.”
Maybe not. But I am. Bloody hell. We’re all mad.
He felt the first semi-cant surrender to Monk’s command. Felt time tick by, each second like a blow from a sledgehammer. Then the second semi-cant collapsed, followed almost immediately by the third. The ether was writhing, thrashing at the release of dark powers. The fourth surrendered. The fifth. More waiting, and then the sixth. The seventh. And then he waited again… and he kept on waiting… and the sledgehammer seconds threatened to smash him to the floor.
“What’s happening?” Bibbie whispered. “Is something wrong? What’s taking so long? Gerald-”
“Don’t-don’t-” he croaked. “Bibbie, don’t move.”
The eighth and final semi-cant disintegrated in a soft thaumic explosion which tossed Bibbie backwards until she struck the parlor wall. Monk crashed to his knees, retching, bringing up brandy and blood.
“Bibbie!” Gerald shouted, and leaped for her. “Bibbie, are you all right?”
She was retching too but there was no blood, Saint Snodgrass be praised. The smothering shadbolt was gone, her aura untrammeled now and shining. She pushed him aside.
“Monk!” she said. “Monk, are you all right? Monk! ”
Superfluous to requirements, Gerald watched as his best friend and the woman he shouldn’t-couldn’t-love fell into each other’s arms.
“You did it, you did it, Monk,” Bibbie sobbed. “I knew you could. I told you. And now you’ll help Plummer catch that murdering black market wizard and that’ll shut Uncle Ralph’s bloody trap for good!”
“What?” Monk demanded, and wrenched himself free of her desperate embrace. “Bibbie-is that why you did it? To put paid to Uncle Ralph?”
Her old scarf had come undone, and her glorious golden hair tumbled free around her face and shoulders. “Why else, you idiot?” she said, and punched his chest. “I mean, I had to do something, didn’t I? Or you’ll have me pedaling that stupid stationary bike of yours until my feet really do spontaneously combust!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Arms folded, kid-booted toes tapping, Melissande stood on the front steps of the Witches Incorporated office building and waited for Gerald and Bibbie to arrive. The previous night’s miserable drizzle had cleared just after dawn, leaving the sky washed clean and the sun with its work cut out to dry up the generously scattered puddles. Boris, fastidious as ever, was seated on the front steps beside her, washing his face and whiskers and refusing to set so much as a toe onto the pavement until all the nasty water was gone.
“It’s a quarter past nine, Boris,” she announced, after glancing at the watch pinned to her sensible blouse. “And they’re still not here. I’m at my wits’ end, I tell you. In fact I’m starting to think that dreadful Miss Petterly had the right idea. As of today tardiness is going to be rewarded by salary deductions, no ifs, ands or buts. Unless that scatterbrained girl and the lovestruck idiot we got foisted on us without so much as a by-your-leave are here in the next five minutes I am keeping back a full ten percent of this week’s wage. I’m putting my foot down, Boris. Hard. Move your tail.”
It wasn’t fair. It was rude and inconsiderate and-and unkind. And as if her colleagues’ lack of punctuality wasn’t enough to bring her out in hives, there was that singularly unnerving Sir Alec to deal with.
“Why me, Boris?” she said, peering along depressingly empty Daffydown Lane. Clients, clients, where were all the clients? “What did I ever do to deserve this?”
Boris, his tail now wrapped neatly around his haunches, dabbed a damp paw behind his ears and declined to answer.
She nodded. “Exactly. Nothing. I’ve done nothing to deserve this disrespectful treatment. Maybe I should stop being plain Miss Cadwallader and go back to being a Royal Highness. Maybe then I won’t get treated like-a-a coat-stand. A rickety one, moreover, that’s been shoved in a corner and left for the woodlice!”
Boris stopped washing his face and sat up a little straighter, ears pointing towards the end of Daffydown Lane. A moment later Monk’s mud-splashed jalopy chugged into view.
“At last,” she said, and marched down the pathway to greet them.
“Sorry, sorry,” said Gerald, climbing out from behind the jalopy’s wheel. He’d parked right behind Sir Alec, but didn’t s
eem to realize. “It’s my fault. I overslept.”
“Really?” she said as he ducked around to open the front passenger door for Bibbie. “I find that hard to believe, Professor Dunwoody. In fact, as Reg would say, do pull the other one so I can-”
Bibbie clambered out of the jalopy. For once she didn’t look cool and calm and elegant. Well, at least, she did on the surface. But underneath the usual polish “Please, Mel, don’t go on at Gerald,” she said wanly. “It’s my fault. I’m the one who overslept. I wasn’t feeling well.”
Gerald was hovering in a far more obvious fashion than usual. And Bibbie had faint purple shadows beneath her eyes. Her eyes met his once, briefly, then she quickly turned away.
Melissande glared at them, her temper rising anew. “Oh, wonderful. Reg could be playing marbles with both of my eyes and I’d still be able to read that look. Come on. Spill the beans. What’s gone wrong now?”
“Wrong?” said Gerald. His voice was very nearly a squeak. “Sorry, Melissande. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, yes you do,” she retorted. “You both have I’ve got a big fat guilty secret written all over you-in capital letters!”
“No, we haven’t,” almost-squeaked Gerald.
Bibbie sighed. “Yes, we have. Come on, Gerald, we knew we’d probably never fool her. Mel-I’m sorry. But it’s best if you don’t know.”
Hurt battled with outrage. Excuse me? What am I? A bloody big mushroom? “Really? And why would that be, pray tell?”
“Because if we explain then your blood pressure will shoot so high every last one of your arteries will explode.”
“For once,” Gerald added, terribly apologetic, “she’s not exaggerating.”
Oh-oh- buttocks. “Fine,” she snapped. “Don’t tell me. See if I care.” I’ll just get it out of Monk. “I don’t have time for your silly games, anyway. As it happens we have a real crisis on our hands.”
